How to get rid of "Do you want to allow..."?

[Mystere]

Of course those saying whitelist would be very bad seem to have forgotten that microsoft did improve windows 7 UAC by whitelisting internal system files, thats all they did, it was very simple. So windows 7 already has UAC whitelist it just isnt configurable.

Microsoft considered a general whitelist, but they rejected it because they had several scenarios where it could be abused.

Linux does many things that wouldn't fly with Windows because Linux can assume it's users are highly technical, and know what is and isn't correct to execute. The requirements to chmod files as executable, for instance, is one of the hoops a user has to jump through to enable malware.

This is fine security, but doesn't fly with less experienced users. Microsoft choose to only whitelist system apps that ship with the OS, and even then not all of them are white listed. Only common use ones (like changing the time of day). You'll notice that Microsoft doesn't whitelist Office, or any other tools that don't ship with the OS, even ones they write.

The problem with a whitelist is that it gives developers yet another excuse to avoid updating their software to conform to the guidelines. A developer will say "Just whitelist it, and we don't have to do anything".

The only way software will become more secure is if developers starting writing more secure software. Continuing to coddle them, and add hacks to the system to allow them to work properly just continues the mess that Windows has been in for decades.

 

[Tepid]

The problem with a whitelist is that it gives developers yet another excuse to avoid updating their software to conform to the guidelines. A developer will say "Just whitelist it, and we don't have to do anything".

Yep, which is exactly what I was saying. There are still a lot of Devs out there that say,

"just turn off UAC and it will work".

Wrong answer.

The only way software will become more secure is if developers starting writing more secure software. Continuing to coddle them, and add hacks to the system to allow them to work properly just continues the mess that Windows has been in for decades.

Which is one of the reason so many people had problems with Vista and still 7, but it wasn't Vista's fault, it was the 3rd party devs faults for not coding properly.

To reiterate it again.

Stop supporting Dev's that create the problems with UAC. Eventually they will start coding properly and the problems will go away or be far less an issue.

 

[LeChat]

Strangely enough this is only happening with Internet Explorer with a new user that I setup for myself. If I sign-in using my old user I don't get the "do you want to allow this program to make changes" message. Any suggestions?

 

[legacy7955]

I'm pretty savvy compared to most PC users, BUT I am glad for the UAC operating just the way it does.

I'm happy to settle for an extra key stroke here and there to stop my system from becoming seriously damaged and then having to spend hours, maybe days trying to recover it.

M$, don't change a thing about the default settings or the way UAC works!

 

[jimg]

If I may get somewhat back to the original problem-

I have Firefox Portable installed.
I was not getting the message.
I changed the name of the icon on the desktop from Firefox Portable.exe to just firefox, because I don't like multi-line ugly names on my icons.
Windows no longer could find the icon for the program.
I tried the normal method of setting the icon, pointing to the exe.
Windows could find the icon within the exe, let me select it, but still would not show it on the desktop.
I extracted the icon, saved it as Firefox.ico, and selected that at the icon. Now the proper icon shows on the desktop.
But.... Now when I run Firefox, windows gives me the stupid message box every time. It never did it before. I've tried a lot of things and nothing seems to solve the problem. How do I get rid of the dang message box. Obviously it a simple setting somewhere or it wouldn't have worked before.

 

[jimg]

More info-
I just did a system restore from two days ago, and it works properly. But, of course, it has the original long ugly icon caption.

This problem should be solvable without screwing with UAC !

 

[Mystere]

You are changing the exe name. Put Firefox Portable.exe somewhere, such as in your program files, or downloads, or something. Then create a shortcut to it, and put that on your desktop. You can rename the shortcut without renaming the exe

 

[jimg]

Thanks for replying. It was a shortcut, to firefox.exe within my portable apps folder on the H: drive.

After the restore, I again changed the name of the shortcut, and windows would not apply the icon. I again pointed the shortcut to the icon within firefox, and this time it worked, for two boot ups. Then windows forgot again. I ignored it, and it was okay the next time I booted, so it's rather a flakey situation. I haven't had the message that was the original point of this tread yet, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I can live without the icon occasionally, so long as it doesn't bug me with message boxes

 

[Mystere]

In that case, the problem is that your shortcut is to an item on removable storage. When windows boots, it doesn't load the storage until some later time. So the icon "link" gets broken.

You can also try rebuilding the icon cache.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/49819-icon-cache-rebuild.html

 

[KLR71]

My solution

The only solution to this that worked for me was this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11949-elevated-program-shortcut-without-uac-prompt-create.html

OR

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/193743-elevated-program-shortcut-create-standard-user.html

Hopefully this will be of use to some.

 

[hfrancis]

Has anyone come up with a solution to this yet - I'm close to having to turn the thing off.

The situation I am in means I CANNOT click yes each time, and I cannot create some special shortcut.

This is my son's new Samsung Laptop. It comes with a load of stupid Samsung applications that handle stuff like updates, and wifi etc. Every time he turns it on it pops up these damn "Do you want to allow" messages. He can't click on them as he doesn't have administrator privileges. I would delete them, but I have no idea if it will stop the laptop working if I do.

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't been taken to court over this - it's clearly unfair business practices - their applications are allowed to run without warning and by any user, whereas anyone else's can only be run by the administrator, and then only after being clicked on.

H

 

[ickymay]

this is not Microsoft but Samsung and poor programming

Its unlikely ANY of the Samsung apps need to run from startup to make your laptop functions work , if at all,

I tend to unninstall this bloatware for my customers and at the least leave them for use on demand.

If you need any hlep post the exact name here or try google to see if they are needed

 

[midgetforce2K]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3718-elevated-command-prompt-shortcut.html

or

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/193743-elevated-program-shortcut-create-standard-user.html

 

[jadinolf]

I hated that on Vista and I hate that on Windows 7.

BUT I'm beginning to love Windows 7.

 

[rbm123]

Mine was specific to itunes, so I used this:
iTunes for Windows: How to turn off Compatibility Mode

For me all I had to do was unclick "run this program as an administrator." I don't have anyone else using my computer, but this was appearing even when I was running as an administrator. I'm assuming these changes would only be able to be made under the administrator's profile.


Not sure if this helps anyone, but I wasn't originally able to find my answer. And these posts are ridiculously long.

 

[swiftie]

Has anyone come up with a solution to this yet - I'm close to having to turn the thing off.

UAC seems to apply only to programs in C:\Program Files...

An earlier post suggested installing your executable OUTSIDE C:\Program Files

I just created a hard link from the files I wanted to execute, OUTSIDE of C:\Program Files.

I also created a stub program to start this link, but that may not be necessary

 

[SteveHC]

Here is how to get rid of the uac pop-up

The solution is INCREDIBLY easy, folks.

First, do yourself a BIG favor and go into Windows Explorer, click on the Tools menu, click on Folder Options, click on View, and ENABLE Show hidden files, folders, and drives (because some of the affected programs and/or their shortcuts are or may be within folders that are hidden by default).

Then search/locate the affected program (discover the ACTUAL file name and location by inspecting one of its shortcut's Properties if you need to). Go into the program's Properties, click on Compatibility, and UNCHECK Run As Administrator (if it's checked).

Finally, right-click on any/all of the program's shortcuts (even if it's in the Start menu - even if Win dows put it there and not you). Go into Properties. Click on ADVANCED. UNCHECK Run As Administrator (if it's checked). Then go into Compatibility and make sure that Run As Administrator is unchecked there as well.

- Viola! No more annoying UAC pop-up! Regardless of where the program or its shortcut(s) are located on your drive - Program Files, Program Data, Windows, the Start menu, the "System Tray" or "Taskbar," wherever.

 

[swiftie]

... UNCHECK Run As Administrator (if it's checked)...

Thanks for that. It worked perfectly, after I followed the instructions correctly (I missed one of the TWO "Run As Administrator" settings in my shortcut).

The program I tested with, Process Explorer (procexp.exe) seems like it might benefit from Administrator priviledge, but it appears to be working OK.

My userid has Administrator Access, so the question is, what does "Run As Administrator" do? Does it run it with my administrator's rights, or does it run it as the userid "Administrator"? I don't have a userid named "Administrator" but I have the original user which was called Administrator during the system installation.

 

[Alejandro85]

UNCHECK Run As Administrator (if it's checked)

That only work for a very small minority of cases, where a user manually checked that. You'll be still asked to elevate if the exe is manifested as "RequireAdministrator". Also, if the program may sometimes legitimately needs admin rights it may not work properly. Process explorer is one of such programs that has additional features that are admin-only.
Reality is, live with the prompts or disable them altogether. After some time seeing them, it turns out that for day to day normal usage there aren't so many, if at all.

My userid has Administrator Access, so the question is, what does "Run As Administrator" do? Does it run it with my administrator's rights, or does it run it as the userid "Administrator"? I don't have a userid named "Administrator" but I have the original user which was called Administrator during the system installation.

With UAC, administrators AREN'T administrators
As crazy as it sounds, but it's a lie made to force users into using standard user accounts and one of the main points in UAC. With UAC, admins are automagically removed from the admin group and run as standard for most times. When a prompt appears, that program, and only that program, gets run using the full administrator enabled token which gives full control over the system.
When using an admin account, the program is run with the very same account always as well as all unelevated ones. When using a standard account, UAC ask for a user/password of an admin and runs the elevated program under that user instead of the logged in one.

 

[swiftie]

When a prompt appears, that program, and only that program, gets run using the full administrator enabled token which gives full control over the system.

Thanks for the explanation. I'll learn to live with the prompts, but meeting the same prompt daily, or even hourly, builds up into an issue. I eradicate such issues, as far as possible, but I can see that I'm not going to win this one.